This invention relates to methods of completely renewing railroad tracks and also to a train equipped with the means necessary for carrying out this method.
The renewal of a railway road track comprises not only the substitution of new rails and ties for the old ones but also the replacement of the ballast. It is now admitted throughout the world that the clearing of old ballast and its replacement with fresh ballast is a must, for the usually dirty and clogged old ballast has lost its requisite resiliency and perviousness. On the other hand, the successive additions of gravel during tie readjustments and tamping cause the track level to be raised, and this may have serious consequences, notably along and across constructive works.
At present the ballast clearing and screening operation is currently performed before or after laying a new track. Therefore, the time necessary for performing this operation adds itself to the time required for performing the other renewal works. On the other hand, this ballast clearing and screening operation requires the lifting of the complete track by means of powerful machines, and this is likely to cause a detrimental distortion of the new rails. Since ballast clearing and screening machines are very large structures, their use is attended by time-robbing and complicated operations, notably for starting and stopping same, and up to now no really satisfactory means has been proposed for operating such huge machines between the old track clearing operation and the new track laying operation.